Abercrombie Encourages Infantile Sluttiness?

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The "padded" bikini top for little girls. Just one item in a list of many on the web page, which I'm not going to allow their link to be graced on my blog.
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So I logged onto my facebook account this morning as I usually do after getting home from work. A friend of mine has a post about Abercrombie now marketing swimwear with padded bikini tops towards the 7-8 year old girl. Many of you readers already know that I am a bit "out there" with where my mind wanders and some of my actions in life. Some of you who really know me, know it takes a lot for me to become suddenly morally outraged. I may not be thrilled with some things on a moral level personally, but generally abide by the old adage, "To each their own." But this really kind of irritated me on a level I am not even sure I can fully comprehend.

I only have young boys for children, so one might think I would be less concerned with such things. But my mind actually wandered into the realm of WHAT IF. What if I had a little girl? Well if I did, she sure as hell would never be getting the opportunity to wear one of these abominations of swimwear. And if anyone bought one for her...it wouldn't even be returned, it would be burned, and videotaped to be put on YouTube shortly thereafter. I don't care how well the marketers may craft it into some "must have" item for little girls. Even if it ruined my imaginary little girl's fragile little self esteem and social standing with all the other little girls whose mothers chose to get them the edgy fashionable slutty swimwear, then so be it. I'd gladly pay for the counseling later, rather than let her wear this kind of garbage.

Now some of you may be asking just whats wrong with a padded bikini top? Well, where to start? For one, the entire premise behind a padded bikini top in its previous forms was to give a little extra oomph in the breast department. It wasn't made for protection, it was made to show of the boobs.

As a former teenager, I didn't mind seeing this on girls my age at the time, or 'older' women either for that matter. At least they had reached puberty and were growing something that may or may not have needed a little extra help showing off. At the same time, I'm sure their dads were all groaning and plotting slow painful deaths to guys like me who took great pleasure in "boobie watching", as it were. Now there was a limit to our watching and admiring, and 7 and 8 year olds were definitely not in the watchable category. As morally questionable as teenage boys are, we (at least the people I knew growing up) knew better than to think it was okay to go oggling some little kid, nevermind the fact that we had no interest in little girls in such a way. Even when we were little, we knew little girls had cooties, and even if we found ourselves "liking" one of these creatures, it was an innocent puppy love that didn't trigger anything sexual whatsoever.

Now clothes makers have always been pushing edgy and fashionable to different new horizons. The midriff shirts, the pants designed to show off your thong and half your ass crack... the thong itself. Bikinis actually as well, when they replaced the one piecers all the adult ladies I knew wore to the pool or beach. They eventually expanded the bikini to little girls... even then I pretty much didn't care. It's a little girl, whatever. But now you're pushing breast enhancing pads into these things to throw on little girls who presumably don't even have breasts?? I mean c'mon! At some point you have to realize just how sick things have gotten. I thought reality TV was the height of moral decadence in our country, but this pretty much just went right up to the number one slot in about 5 seconds of me finding out about it. Sure, the pads are "removable", but so the fuck what? Why are they there in the first place? Protection??? On a 7 to 8 year old girl?? I think not. There are far more spots on a little girls body that would require protection before her chest did.

I'm not sure who deserves to be fired and shot, and not necessarily in that order, The moron who designed this stuff, the boss who approved it because it was a such a "great idea", and edgy and all that mumbo jumbo, or the friggin marketers who, lacking much in the way of morals and ethics once money is waved in their face.

Now I'm all about the free market and making products that people need and want, but I think at this point they are trying to artificially create a market where none existed and are now going to push it down our throats as much as possible until the idea of a 7 or 8 year old girl with the swimwear equivalent of a pushup bra is so mainstream we don't even think about it. What's next, edible thongs for kids??? I mean for fucks sake, go design whatever the hell ya want in the privacy of your own little office, but there does come a point where you need to consider that not every one of your little ideas is worthy of being shown off to the world.

With all the news of pedophiles out and about in the world all around us, why would you even bother with such nonsense. It's like you're trying to offer up your little girl with a target on her for these nutjobs, just so you can look like a "cool" mom who's hip and trendy and has her daughter wearing the "latest" thing, that other mom's will be envious of you and adore you for your progressive forward thinking ways.

SO to the guys who designed, made and marketed this idea, and to any parent who considers getting this for their kid to actually wear..., I hope you get chased into a pit full of Duckbill Platypi and feel the wrath of its venomous stinger and the subsequent issues that come along with it, even after treatment, you pieces of fucking TRASH! And after that, if you would be so kind as to douse yourselves in gasoline and light yourselves on fire for a little rendition of "hell on earth", that'd be great.

More on Denny's, Buggy, The Colonel, and Adoption

Just to clarify the title a bit, none of those are actually related. Buggy stays here; the Colonel wont leave unless it is to go outside, but he would expect to be let back in; And so far Denny's hasn't adopted me...YET!

So first, lets go with Denny's. As some of you know, I have an unhealthy liking of Denny's Restaurants. I'd call it stalking, but since the buildings don't exactly move, and they WANT me to come in and eat their food, it doesn't technically qualify. But, if the Denny's went on wheels like the Ice Cream man, yes I would be one of the crazies running down the street begging for the guy to throw me a few pancakes to catch like some sort of dog chasing a car. And maybe an omelet, and some hash browns with the works. Sure it'd be messy, but my inner child will manifest himself and eat the stuff off of the pavement just like a kid who drops his candy in the dirt. It's just like sprinkles, that's all!

Anyways, so I started a Facebook group page dedicated to making me the next new face of Denny's. I haven't worked out all the details yet, but it basically involves them making me their real world advertiser. Some pics, some videos, some blogs about the Denny's I'm at, the city its in, employees, people in that city (in and outside of the Denny's), things like that. The first step is this page, to attempt to use facebook's networking capabilities to garner support from my friends, their friends, and whoever else may stumble upon it. It seemed to have worked well for Betty White to get asked to host Saturday Night Live. But she's a celebrity. Let's see how well this thing can work for a normal (I use that term loosely when referring to me) person.
Then we go to Denny's Corporate with a nice juicy plan for them and me. So if you have a facebook account, you can friend me, or just join the group or both. If you don't have a facebook account, you should make one for the pure purposes of helping out this effort. With no monetary support, and my having limited interactions with much of anybody, this is as grassroots as it gets. Plus, I'd get to travel to all the wondrous Denny's locations...and then maybe take in some of the local attractions, which of course are secondary to my favorite eating establishment.

Now, onto Buggy. He is just about to finish his year in Kindergarten in a few hours. As some of you readers know, this boy has managed to endear himself to the staff while sneaking extra breakfasts at school. In fact one of the staff mentioned that he specifically is one of the staff favorites when it comes to the kids. He recently came home with an award from his teacher. I assume its one of those things where every kid gets some kind of positive acknowledgement. His, unsurprisingly, was "Best Sense of Humor". He had surprised his teacher early in the school year by exuding an extremely dry sense of humor on top of the normal cackling little kid humor most people are used to from kids. So, as I said, neither his mother nor I were very surprised at this. I do believe that nothing will really surprise us with this particular son of ours. Even if he comes home one day and accidentally lets it slip out of his mouth the goings-on in other parts of the metro area, after having jumped on a city bus, or took off with a friends parents under the assumption that we knew about it and were okay with them taking him along, or just plain having walked. Or if he comes home with a ripped shirt and tells us how he had just scored the winning touchdown while scrimmaging with the local high school football team even though he is nowhere near old enough, and now was thirsty, not giving second thought to the fact that we might want to know what he's doing BEFORE he goes and does it...none of this would be surprising.

The older one, Josh, pushes his limits somewhat, but is generally more passive and willing to ask permission before going off to do much of anything. Corwyn on the other hand would be the one to tell everyone things are fine, and he doesn't need to ask permission to do stuff "he already knows he can do." I already know that when he is a teenager that he and I will be having the same stupid discussions my dad had with me when I came home at 3 or 4 in the morning. And he will irritate me because I have to have these discussion, but also because it will be just another set of opportunities for me to sound JUST LIKE the Evil Duane did, which I had promised to never be like when I grew up. Whenever I talk to Mom and Dad, he always laughs at me when I tell stories of what the kids have done 'this time.' I have another feeling that whenever the boys go up to see their Nana and grandpa that stories are told and ideas planted, just to expedite the process. I just can't prove it yet!

The Colonel is as feisty as ever. He'll nap in long stretches and leave you alone, until its time for you to be left alone by necessity. Then he shows up, wound up like a kid who just downed 12 giant Pixie sticks, followed by an entire 2 liter bottle of Coke. He makes weird growling noises as he runs back and forth through the apartment, sometimes only stopping his current path because his head ran into a wall, the door, a cabinet, or some furniture, before reversing paths back the way he came. He's a bit on the weird side. We are however in the midst of changing over his diet a little bit. It has been told to me by my friend Machelle, that the current cat food brand (which shall remain nameless) we have been giving the Colonel since we got him, was mentioned by her vet to cause crystals in the urine/bladder, and can seriously screw the cats system up over time. Whether or not its factual information or the vet is a shill for some other cat food manufacturer is beyond me. But one ingredient in the current brand is Zinc Oxide. Now maybe I'm wrong, but isn't that what people throw on their noses at the beach to avoid a sunburn, while causing them to look like an albino-nosed idiot at the same time? I treasure my cat's health, but I never thought to worry about his innards getting sun burnt, what with all that fur and abundance of fatty tissue and bone surrounding his digestive system. I have no idea why someone would stick zinc oxide into food. I am pretty sure that if I wiped the zinc oxide off your nose someday this summer and proceeded to eat it, I would not be doing too well later on that day, never mind the nasty taste left in my mouth. Turns out the stuff is nearly insoluble in water. No wonder they say an adequate supply of water is needed to maintain your pet's health. I have to wonder what amount is considered 'adequate.' Either way, we've made the switch over to Purina cat food, and are doing a mixture of both, until we work the Colonel into the new stuff entirely. Don't need to upset his bowels any, he already poops more than enough for a whole herd of cats. I'm hoping that the new diet will curb some of the pooping, the eating of paper and cardboard boxes, the strength of smell his pee comes armed with (it gets bad some days). And he can tone it down to normal cat like activities of snubbing me, and eating the children, things like that. I'm not thinking he'll calm down much on any of it, but I can always cross my fingers and hope.

Now onto probably the most important topic, Adoption. Some of my readers already know of the situation, but for the rest of you, I'll bring forth some enlightenment.
For awhile now, my good friends Jed and Naomi, have been looking to adopt children and have their own family. They have been working hard at saving money up and holding fundraisers, to get the over-$30,000 they need for this to happen at all. They have gone through the excitement of having a placement of 2 young girls, only to have their joy arrested when the girls were found to have been placed in the foster program fraudulently by their mother. The supposed dead father had showed back up. It was heartbreaking for all involved who have been supporting them, but I guess God had decided that those were not the children meant to be a part of Jed and Naomi's family. Well, after a long wait, far too long, they have 2 qualified little girls, ages 4 and 7, who have been vetted it appears, and ready for adoption. The court date is tentatively going to be this fall to make the adoption go through. While its months away yet, it also gives Jed and Naomi time to work toward the last few thousand dollars they need. It turns out Ethiopia has new rules on adoption to overseas. Instead of just one trip over, both Jed and Naomi will need to go over twice. Once for the adoption court date, and again to bring home the children to the United States. You can find some of their plans
here on their adoption blog. Please think it over, pray on it, whatever it is you do, and if you can give, even just a little bit, feel free to donate to their cause so that they might make their dreams of having a family come true! And, if you could, as a favor to me, or them, pass this section on to your friends, and see if they would be willing to help out as well! Thank you!

People Helping People Idea

Okay, so this is my blogsite for more serious thoughts, I'll pitch my idea here. I've been thinking about, coddling, and developing this idea in my own head going on about a year and a half now. And now, as it becomes more solid in my mind (the concepts, not the practice of) I will share it with you who read my stuff here.
I have contemplated starting up a corporation of my own. Not a tradition business so much as a philanthropic corporation. It all started with my Godmother, Kim, who received financial help for college expenses, under the condition that she pay it forward by helping someone else out with their education related expenses. My sister and I were the beneficiaries of this. I would like to do the same thing. Now helping my kids technically qualifies, which I am slowly doing on my own, but I want to take it all a step further.
I would like to set up a team of people who raise funds, creating a huge superfund, in which we provide low and lower-middle income kids with money for college. With tightening restrictions on school loan eligibility and availability, some people could very well need extra places to look for money. My team of marketing geniuses would be presented with a huge challenge in raising money on literally no budget, at least to start. For their efforts they would be rewarded. Instead of some meager payscale regardless of how much they raise, I tie their salary into the efforts. I would give them a base 10% of their individual efforts, with bonuses tied into the structure for achieving great results. I haven't finalized yet the bonus structure, so don't ask yet. We have time, as I havent filed for incorporation yet anyways (which I would name the company after my godmother)
Now, for the people who we would help. We would provide these potential students with the necessary money to pay for their schooling, be it a 2 yr tech school, community college, or a full 4 year degree. Initially it would be a loan, that as with most loan programs we would ask for repayment back into the system to help provide for other like kids in the future. However, they have a chance to earn the loan into a scholarship, by achieving a degree with a certain GPA (I am thinking 3.75 and above, but that's negotiable at this point). Also, for all loans, instead of charging some interest rate, we eliminate the interest altogether, making repayment limited only to the amount borrowed.
I was also thinking, that with a certain amount of money, I can figure in the costs to cover "x" amount of people per year, with essentially 5 years worth of students receiving payments at any given time, having funding great enough to support it almost, if not entirely, on interest gains alone. If this is confusing, just ask, I'll lay the details out on paper for you. With enough funding, in addition to paying for college costs, community service projects might be able to be included, whether it is for field trips for students, grammar/high school supplies, or something else. I guess, if it gets that big, I'll need some leaders of people to help me decide how extra projects, if they can be supported, would be decided upon.
And.....for those who insist on government funded things like healthcare or whatever, I can stay for-profit, and pay the taxes on it all as well....heck I don't know. We'll decide that later when I decide to file for incorporation. But, until then, I'm looking for motivated people who want a challenge to help me realize this dream of helping others (with voluntary donations) to take steps towards achieving their dreams.
To those of you who made it this far through, thanks for listening to a crackpot idealist drone on for a few minutes.